CASE STUDY: SOLVE IN CLASS IN TEAMS (45 MINUTES)

Case: Who Will Go to Canada?

Sándor Takács, Corvinus University Budapest, Hungary

[Students solve business case studies in English during this course in writing and prepare with
presentations during several weeks, and they get feedback and evaluation from experts. Groups with the
best results can represent the university on high ranking international business case solving
competitions.]

The situation

A five-students group of the SSC (Strategic Case Competition) course is having a preparation meeting 2.5
months before the “ISB-Ivey Global Case Competition” tendered by the Richard Ivey School of Business.
It’s the fall of 2017, early November. The group meets in the University’s corridor at 6 pm Wednesday
evening, because two of them still have seminars at 19:10 – however they had to skip them a couple of
times recently, because they did not finish the meetings in time.

They started the teamwork at the beginning of the year with great expectations which was confirmed by
the feedbacks, but in the last two weeks they have lost their leading position among other groups. It
means that they are not likely to represent the University at the case competition is Canada. Though
when they started the course, they were deliberately choosing each other to be able to complete each
other by means of personality, professional field, working style and way of thinking. Beside the
theoretical knowledge it was important to have that kind of practical approach, which was given by the
extracurricular work experience at most of the teammates.

ORSI, whose major is marketing, is currently working at her second workplace. She deliberately did not
take more than 30 hours a week. She left her first job, because of the exhaustion from the 40-45 hours
work, which was really well-paid, but gave no chance for further professional improvement, and almost
cost her the relationship with her boyfriend.

PETER works as a consultant of corporate finance at a small financial advisory company, he assembles
business assessment models and plays water polo in his free time.

ZOLI works 20 hours per week as a logistics trainee in the warehouse of a multinational organization. He
found this part-time job by accident at the spring job fair and started to work after the exam-period, in
summer. As he learned several new systems, he was likely to spend more than 20 hours at the firm, but
for now he started to feel the downsides of this practice.

FERI is in accountancy and has a theoretical way of thinking. Earlier he wrote a paper for a scientific
competition and now he is thinking of joining the PhD program, but haven’t committed himself towards
the academic career yet. He chose the case competition subject, because he can greatly mix his analytic
skills and knowledge, and also can practice a practical approach as a second option this way.

SOFI’s major is management and leadership, and although she already chose a specialization (Process
management), she is recently wondering about another specialisation (HR and Organization
development) and started to attend its courses, which caused a very challenging period for her in this
semester. The change started by getting an active role in the internal OD project of a large domestic
company, which seems more and more exciting for her.

We are on one of the case-solving meetings. Three are present: Feri, Zoli and Orsi. The meeting should
have started almost half an hour ago and the mood is really tense. Peter have called earlier, that he has
to finish a model which must be sent to his colleague promptly for a presentation tomorrow in Skopje.
Unfortunately, important objections arose about the previous version, which only came up that
afternoon. He was really in a hurry but intended not to do an incorrect job once again and had some
problems to fix yet. Sofi is unavailable on her mobile phone and has not even sent a text message about
being expected or not.

This is not the first meeting of this kind this month. On the previous meeting Zoli could not attend, or
rather he came late, and he was not familiar with a case of 25-pages. Only Orsi has a relatively blameless
record.

Zoli and Orsi have a conversation, Feri reads a newspaper.

Z: Shall we wait for the others or start?

O: We said that we will devote 2 hours every week, but we can not stick to it. Everybody seemed so
passionate at the beginning, but now I feel I am losing my enthusiasm. We are working for the whole
group. I got some remarks at my workplace recently for being late...

Z: I did not think this semester will be so hard. But this is really weird, people just dont call when they
are late. I remember, this was also part of our agreement at the beginning, that we are going to call
when something unexpected happens. Peter said at least something now, but I am curious...

O: Yes, as you did last week, even if you could not read it, but you were here and you had useful
questions.

Z: Sure, but I do not intend to take on this role forever, this time I even took some notes. Lets start, even
if they are not here.

O: OK, but I will not go by without a word next time.

F: (connecting into the conversation) I think I am the only one who has a right to complain, as I was
never late, read everything etc. What would happen if I would start working at a Big 4?

At this moment Sofi enters the room, she has realized on the bus that her mobile was down so she could
not call them for being late. She was getting even more nervous for this, she tried to go through the case
again on the bus, but her thoughts were about the situation at her employer and the consulting firm,
both expect a lot from her and now she tries to satisfy everybody... It does not seem to be sustainable
for the long term... Her boyfriend started to work also this year and they are so stressed out that they
almost did not have a proper weekend since the beginning of the semester, they just concentrate on
tasks that have been forgotten or undone during the week and have a little longer sleep for re-energize
themselves.

S: Hi guys, sorry, my telephone’s batteries run down completely and I just realized it on the bus.
O: So you did not even try to call from your workplace.

S: Listen, I was really in a hurry, and before that we had a little tension with the materials I am
responsible for, so I did not even have a chance. I am really sorry, I had a difficult week. Sometimes I feel
that my own case would be enough for me. Yes, we should even have a look at our own case and solve it
like a case study. Unfortunately, we don’t even have time for it in this speedy game.

At this moment Zoli’s mobile starts ringing. It is Peter, saying that at this moment he has decided for
sure, that he is not going to attend their meeting. He is promising that next time he will do some extra
effort, but it seems to be a high chance that he is going to sleep in the office.

Z: It seems to be that we are going to work in 4 again, it seems to become the new standard, and this
may be OK, the only thing is that this way we are not going to make our way to Canada or even if we
will, we won’t have a high chance for winning, as the secret of that is a well-developed teamwork. But
this is not a high risk, as we are going down in the point collecting competition.

O: This is a really highly motivating beginning, let us see what would be our advice for Facebook in order
to increase its share prices by 30%. “We all want to be a very successful company... But the question is:
how?”

The beginning of the semester and what happened since

At the beginning of the semester participants of this course did not have any illusion that it will be
tough, but they had a strong belief in the strength of self-initiated challenges. They knew each other
from before a little, but on the first class when they formed as a group – taking into account previous
experiences in university student groups – they have established some principles and 71 rules and had
an explicit agreement also in writing. They formulated this in order to be able to have it on the table if
something goes wrong. They did not think about other sanctions as they trusted so much each other and
their common goals. There was one principle about democratic decision making, and the group size of 5
guaranteed that there won’t be a deadlock, but they did not think about the possibility of being only 4
people present as their other principle was that “We should be on time and prepared!” However, they
did not discuss the possibility that someone is present but not read the case or did not prepare for the
discussion.

Due to different schedules of their master programs, and the differences in their workplace
requirements, they could not find a better time slot than the evening meeting. They also agreed, that if
someone will be late due to an unexpected workplace duty or private program, he or she should at least
send a message for the others can decide to wait or start the meeting. Other agreements were made
about how they will prepare the presentations after the discussion. The basic principle was using their
comparative advantages, and sometimes assign “developmental tasks” to those members, that need
improvement in certain fields – according the feedback received from other group members. Regarding
the decision making they agreed that there is no central leader in the group, they will make decisions in
a democratic way and the role of facilitating their meetings will be rotated. Than the semester started,
they realized that almost all specializations had some work intensive course with other group-works,
they had a fragmented time schedule what has challenged their time management skills, as well as their
individual work and life situation was in constant flux.
ORSI

Based on the good experiences of her practice at a company (as part of bachelor program) Orsi has
chosen another employer when she started her masters, as she also wanted to experience another
professional area. She was lucky to decide to leave that employer and concentrate only on her studies in
her second semester. In her second year, she thought she will have less courses, so on the Job Fair of
Corvinus University she has chosen a 30 hours/week trainee position at a multinational FMCG company.
She was very happy for this as she has decided by then that she would like to work on marketing. At this
company, a 30 hours/week traineeship means that on average 30 hours should be spent with work in a
flexible schedule: the company takes care for communication devices (mobile, laptop, etc.) and students
can work from home, from university, early morning or late night, also over the weekends. This solution
has pressed her for a conscious time management. It was common at this company to offer jobs for
those trainees who were able to show a high performance, and for Orsi it was important not to spend
months with looking for a job after finishing university. Slowly she will learn the organization, her
colleagues will get to know her well (last week she had a team building session with them), and she can
have other kinds of trainings, internal workshops etc. So, she does not experience any negative
consequences of studying in her employment status (being “only” a trainee), the work she does needs
similarly high levels of responsibility, like a FTE assistant or beginner brand manager. Through a student-
cooperative she earned 80 thousand forint per months, which is not a very high salary, but above that
she was eligible for other employee benefits like cheap company products or using the fitness room. She
could also expect to have consultation and data gathering help to her thesis work – that was only
available for trainees. That was very relieving in her last year of studies.

At this company, trainees received a very important role in the talent program; they were subject to the
same performance evaluation system as normal employees. Managers regarded them as potential
future leaders or specialists; they were offered a position after a very thorough selection procedure
scrutinizing their problem solving and leadership competencies. There was a priority setting exercise as
well, when it turned out how they handled overload and conflict (just in case they were overloaded with
too many tasks from different people).

Orsi felt some dilemma about the current situation: what they could and should do with the increasing
tensions within their case solving team, when she had the feeling sometimes that she did not have the
energy to manage her own time either, so why to bring even more conflicts and tensions to the surface.
But if things will go on like this, the situation might become even worse, so maybe they should act
before it will go completely wrong. Maybe the time has come to look at their original agreements, but
unfortunately, they did not agree on who should initiate this or how to make it happen exactly. It was an
explicit agreement that they are a leaderless team, she did not want to be seen as “bossy” as she
experienced in previous situations that if someone does not communicate in line with the expectations,
he or she can receive lots of critics behind her back.

PETER

In September Peter felt that his job will be a dream one, he managed to organize his classes according to
his plans, the probation period was over at work, he enjoyed working in a multicultural environment and
even sport was manageable. It was a challenge though, with no time for friends and family or travel and
hobbies, but he was confident that he will be able to manage it.

One of his university teachers has called his attention to the SIM course, that offer him a broader
perspective on finances, even the possibility of a mentor, that could speed up his career later on. It was
only by the end of September when he realized that there were higher expectations at his workplace
than originally agreed: he had to find solutions in situations that exceeded his experience level, be
flexible and react immediately in situations that came in unpredictable sequences, and it was really hard
to say no after his salary was raised by 40% after the first months. In October there was 250 thousand
HUF transferred to his bank account.

The small financial consulting company had a “work hard - play hard” culture, its founder liked to put
young colleagues into “deep water” where they “either swim or sink”. Peter has accepted this
challenging environment, learned something new in every project, but he was also interested in his
university studies, as he knew, that for the long-term development he will also need deeper knowledge
as well. Right now, he was wondering how he could combine university lectures and his current work.
He was learning constantly in his daily job, but he was unsure about how much this will help him to grow
into higher level positions. He did not have any time for networking with students and university faculty,
so his doubts about the return on investment on the labour market were increasingly worrying.

The SIM course was a possibility to raise his head above the daily hassles of his current life, experts and
university teachers are curious about their performance, and clear, immediate feedback was what he
has always relied on. At the moment of resigning his meeting with the SIM-team he did not think about
these ideas, as his boss has just expressed his confidence in his potential talents and that he did not
want to be disappointed with him.

SOFI

She had her compulsory practice after the bachelor program at a big “domestic multi”, than he stayed
there in 20 hours/week, going up gradually to 30 hours. In the past 2 years she rotated to several areas
and she was able to learn a lot practicalities in EMS, process management and general company
operations. Although the company offered a secured career and attractive remuneration package, she
has been contrasted several times with old cultural habits that the they tried to change with the current
“Organizational Culture Change” initiative she was involved in.

This project had an external partner that had a really different approach to employee involvement and
participation, then previous ones. Orsi was very enthusiastic about real empowerment that was part of
every workshop and other human development activities. Based on similar principles she has been
invited to the preparation and planning of future OD activities and interventions. She has enjoyed the
open, humanistic environment based on strong professional values, not showing any signs of
organizational games so frequent in large companies.

She met one of her previous classmates who did not continue her master studies at this company, and
she was a bit less happy, because during her first year she did not get high-responsibility kind of
projects, only administrative ones (translations, documentations, preparations, organizational activities)
and her salary was also much lower than Orsi’s current salary (150 thousand HUF). Orsi knew it from
current contracts and proposals, that experienced consultants earn a daily fee that would be better,
than her monthly package, but at the moment she did not care about material issues at all. She was
more concerned about taking on “Organization development and HR” as a new specialisation at her
master program, and the resulting overload with the courses of two university specialisations and the
projects of two employers.

FERI

After a negatively experienced BA compulsory practice, Feri has decided to lay his energy on his
university studies and do not pay much attention to the fact that almost all his friends from the
university started to work besides their studies. Relieved from the negative experiences (low status for
trainee activities, ethical dilemmas etc.) he has started to enjoy students’ life again, he had time to
professional and community programs, cultural events (e.g. film club), started to learn new languages …
etc.

Regarding his chosen master program (Accounting) he experienced some uncertainty (whether it would
be personally the best direction for him), but he thought there will be enough time to decide about it
later. His choice of the university was based on similar grounds, he did not want to be a 75 doctor,
lawyer or engineer, he had good results from maths and history, so his high school teachers suggested
him to choose the university for economics.

In the second year of the master program he even thought about doing a PhD, his university teachers
regarded him as philosophically thoughtful, even included him as a research student into a research
project. Based on his analysis of data, he even wrote a thesis for Students’ Scientific Competition,
receiving a 2nd place. But running a scientific career did not seem to him an easy move – taking into
account the salary level of the public sphere and the fact, that he has still lived with his parents, while
many of his classmates lived in rented apartments with their partners or peers, paying from their own
salaries. Since he heard from Peter how much he earned, his frustrations loomed even higher.

ZOLI

He has decided for the Logistics master program, because he has enjoyed his BA course a lot and his
course leader was very positive about the future challenges and opportunities of the sector. He was also
attracted to international projects and he felt that this choice is a good starting point.

When he started his master studies he wanted to enjoy two more years of being a student – to be free
to see the world, find out what he really wanted to do, go to a special college etc. After a while the
freedom of this period started to raise higher levels of anxiety than he expected. He was frustrated by
his friends (with whom he could meet only occasionally) talking about their workplace experiences, his
parents also put his brother into forefront who has started working already during bachelor years. So
when he has found this 20 hours job during last summer, he was not hesitating too long.

At the beginning, he has taking it really seriously, asking for extra tasks from his colleagues, but they
were calming him down: “do not eat it so hot”, be patient and do the work we give to you. University
courses were also less motivating, his classmates did not put much energy into their projects (usually
due to heavy working times), quick and acceptable performance was the standard. The SIM course was
the only good thing for him, where he could put his heart and mind – maybe for the international
exposure and the opportunity to work with similar minded people. Probably this was the reason that in
the past couple of weeks he has become really impatient with absenteeism and lack of preparation
within the team.

The end of the case discussion

Although the case discussion started with some difficulties, after a while those, who were present
started to check-in and got into the flow-zone”, as they called it. They even failed to realize that time
was running quickly and they had to finish the meeting, because two of them had classes afterwards.
Distributing the dull tasks of preparing the presentation for the course itself has caused some tensions
and time delays again. Before leaving to a seminar Feri has expressed, that he did not want to take on
additional tasks as he had an important role in the current discussion. They all agreed that Peter should
take on more tasks (as he has offered this for the group when he has resigned his participation for the
meeting), but they all felt that they can use this with strong limitations. If they wanted to have good
feedback for the presentation, all the good ideas and learnings of the discussion should be built into the
proposal. Finally, they all agreed that they should distribute the task among those who were present in
the discussion, possible equally, than Sofi and Feri left for their classes (with 10 minutes delay).

Orsi and Zoli could stay for a little bit longer and they agreed, that at this moment there would be a
chance to make a change in their teamwork. For this, there should be some individual decisions made,
and also some team-rules re-considered. The agreed that before the next meeting they will meet for
one hour to discuss what should be done, in order to increase their chances to be the team that goes to
Canada.

The task: (Solve these questions as a team, we will discuss after 30-40 minutes)

1. What would you suggest as Orsi / Zoli to the team next time?

2. Would you wait until the next meeting or would you communicate something before it to team
members? How should they prepare for the meeting?

3. How would you plan the activities: prepare a 1 hour schedule!

Self-reflective discussion: (To be solved individually)

After going through the case study, attempt these self-reflective questions individually:

• Which team member’s situation was familiar to you? Or do you have a unique case?

• How satisfied are you with your own work/study/life balance?

• What changes would you make for finding a better balance?